Kategoria BISAC: Political Science >> American Government - National

The runaway New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and USA Today bestseller

The facts

At least 50 of the 425 terrorists released from Guantanamo have returned to the battlefield to fight our troops.

Barack Obama has called for $1 trillion in tax increases over the next ten years--and dressed them up as tax cuts

Up to a quarter of all state pension funds in the United States are invested in companies that are helping Iran, Syria, North Korea, or the Sudan--for a total of nearly $200...

This provocative book develops empowerment theory in the context of community mediation. Schwerin uses a case study of a large urban community mediation program to explore the empowerment concept and to assess widely believed hypotheses about empowerment and community mediation. The major contributions of this work to Transformational Politics and the community mediation movement include the development and elaboration of empowerment theory; the analysis of mediation ideology, mediation training, and mediation process; and the exploration of the linkage between community mediation and...

This is a revision and update of Gertzog's successful 1984 study of women in the United States Congress. Now, 10 years later, the congressional roster is far different: Women have made major in-roads in numbers and prominence in the House of Representatives. Based upon interviews with 45 members of the 103rd Congress, this study examines the rise in the number of women elected, the circumstances leading to their success, and their integration into the workings of the institution, in both legislative and political terms.

"The Decline and Fall of the Supreme Court" examines the contemporary work of the U.S. Supreme Court and the advice and consent role of the Senate with regard to nominees to the Court. After presenting historical background on the intentions of the federalists and 20th-century jurisprudence, the work describes the baleful effects of the recent theory known as legal realism. The author examines the most dramatic of those effects--the polarized, polarizing, and partisan confirmation hearings with which the United States has become familiar--beginning with Abe Fortas and culminating with...

A rebel and risk-taker from childhood, John McCain son and grandson of admirals nevertheless chose to follow the traditional path marked out for him in the military. Nearly six years in a North Vietnamese prison tested his resolve and proved his extraordinary resilience and will to survive. Coming to Congress, McCain found that making his way in politics demanded a different set of survival skills, and he grew accustomed to the corridors of power while striving to keep his independence. This lively biography traces McCain's unlikely ascent to the verge of attaining the nation's highest...

Sig Mickelson, former president of CBS News and pioneer in television coverage of political events, gives an eyewitness account of Television's complicated interaction with the U.S. political system. From Whistle Stop to Sound Bite explores the origins of the relationship between television and politics and offers an analysis of the factors that led to the decline of substance in the political campaign. With a fine eye for detail and many years of political coverage experience behind him, Mickelson probes four decades of TV history and defines the changes that this new media has wrought on...

"Campaigns, Congress, and Courts" presents a political history of the passage, judicial interpretation, and administration of federal campaign finance law from 1907 to the present. The volume focuses on the post-Watergate years and analyzes the ideological and partisan conflicts which shape congressional and public debate over how, or whether, to regulate political money. The book opens with an account of the first law, then moves to the Watergate period while explaining the background of the 1970's reforms. Subsequent chapters examine the origin and passage of legislation through case...

Radical new technologies are developing in Western societies at ever-increasing rates but contemporary democracies often lack the appropriate organizational forms to confront these developments. "Creative Democracy" discusses the failure of politicians and democratic institutions to cope with modern challenges, and proposes a specific strategy to address these problems in contemporary society. The authors propose new strategies to increase public awareness of, and democratic control over, major technological developments explaining the advantage of democratic discourse and consensus...

"Political Parties in the Southern States" traces the changes presently taking place in the South and identifies their broader consequences. The South is undergoing a political revolution--from issueless politics to one of the most issue-oriented sets of party coalitions and policy alternatives in the nation. These studies, based on a 1984 survey of state convention delegates, explores fundamental aspects of the changing system. Concerns include the role of elite studies in interpreting trends in mass politics; the increasing institutionalization of American politics, particularly as...

Written for social scientists who study the judiciary, legal scholars, judges, and others who are interested in the workings of the federal courts, this volume offers a comprehensive examination of the role of U.S. magistrates--the relatively invisible subordinate judicial officers within the federal district courts. The study is unique in its use of an observation methodology: the author was able to study U.S. magistrates during all of their daily activities and observe their interactions with other actors in the federal judiciary. Particularly valuable are its insights into such...

Ted G. Jelen's study asks two basic questions: Why do some people apply their religious beliefs to their political behavior, and what are the consequences of politicized Christianity for the practice of democracy in the United States? Supportive data for his findings, collected from the members and clergy of fifteen churches in a rural Midwestern county, suggest that the decline of the Christian Right is due to religious particularism. Mutual distrust and suspicion among Fundamentalists, Evangelicals, Charismatics, and Pentecostals, as well as their widespread antipathy to Roman Catholics,...

Studying the increasingly powerful role television plays in the political process, Fredric T. Smoller offers a persuasive argument that the big three network coverage of the presidency is gradually eroding public support for and confidence in that office. This book argues that network coverage of the presidency is determined by the political, technical, and commercial nature of the medium itself, producing a bias toward extensive and negative coverage. Smoller studies the thematic nature of television's presidential coverage, demonstrating how producers and correspondents integrate their...